Interesting that "a former Wallaby in a senior rugby position has been death-riding" RA!

Izack Rodda could be open to U-turn on decision to quit Reds

WAYNE SMITH

SENIOR SPORT WRITER
9:22PM MAY 28, 2020

All he would say was “I’ve got no comment at this stage” but Australian rugby was abuzz on Thursday with the possibility that Wallabies and Queensland second-rower Izack Rodda was seeking to undo his decision to move overseas.

The game was astounded a fortnight ago when it emerged that Rodda, along with two other high-profile members of the Reds squad, Isaac Lucas and Harry Hockings, had decided to put themselves at odds with 189 of their professional rugby peers by refusing to sign the deal negotiated by RUPA and Rugby Australia to savagely cut their pay.

Events moved quickly from there. The Reds stood them down, the three players repudiated their contracts and, in the end, Rugby Australia cut them adrift, with interim CEO Rob Clarke indicating he would not be rewarding maverick behaviour by allowing them to transfer to another Australian franchise.

It is understood that Lucas and Hockings have signed letters of intent with Japanese clubs but Rodda, the only capped Wallaby among the three with 25 Tests, was always considered the player most likely to have second thoughts about severing his ties with Australia.

The media speculated that Reds coach Brad Thorn’s decision to award the Queensland captaincy not to Rodda but to the then 21-year-old Liam Wright was at the heart of the Test lock’s disenchantment. But in an interview with Triple M earlier this week, Thorn denied there was any semblance of a rift between them and indeed said Rodda had come to his home last Saturday. “I’ve never had a problem with Izack and we’ve never had an argument,” Thorn said. “He lost his father (last year). I lost my Dad when I was 19. We’ve had a lot of personal chats. With Izack, he is a guy you care about a lot.”

Rodda received the news of his father’s death, by suicide, when he was in Dunedin last February for the match against the Highlanders and begged Thorn to be allowed to play.

“Dad always wanted me to play footy because he loved watching me, so I thought there would be no better way of honouring him,” Rodda told The Australian during last year’s World Cup campaign in Japan.

If there is one single factor in Rodda’s rumoured change of heart, it might well have been that interview Thorn did with Triple M. Even though Rugby Australia had just declared Rodda a free agent and effectively cut him loose, it would have hit home to Rodda that Thorn still cared about him as a person.

Neither incoming Wallabies coach Dave Rennie nor Rugby Australia’s director of rugby, Scott Johnson, have given up on attempting to persuade Rodda to change his mind, so there would presumably be only a few obstacles to overcome should he decide to officially approach the QRU and RA.

Certainly if he was to have the courage to come out and admit he had made a mistake and contritely attempted to rejoin the Australian rugby family, he would in an instant rise from pariah to favourite son.

The game has taken a savage battering both from within and without lately, with reports that a former Wallaby in a senior rugby position has been death-riding it in talks with players’ agents, but if Rodda was to execute a U-turn, it would send a powerful message that Australian rugby has a future.

But it is a fine balance at present and ironically while one Wallabies second-rower is reportedly contemplating a return, another is planning to head to France. It is understood that while Matt Philip will play out this year in Australia with Melbourne Rebels and quite possibly the Wallabies, hoping to add to his tally of three Tests, the 26-year-old is heading to France next year to play for Pau.

Philip was done no favours in the past by the Australian selectors, and he looked like surging into Test team contention this season, irrespective of whether Rodda and Hockings carry through with their plans to head overseas. But there is a Test locking position wide open.

Rugby Australia is yet to guarantee player contracts beyond this season, despite requests for assurances from player agents.

Interim RA chief executive Rob Clarke said he hoped to provide more “clarity” as soon as possible for players and their agents.

RA is battling to secure its major revenue stream — a broadcast deal — beyond 2020 with the current $57m-a-year contract with Fox Sports expiring at the end of this year.

“It’s not surprising we haven’t been able to give absolute clarity until we secure a broadcast partner for the future, those two things are linked,” Clarke said. “I am keeping (RUPA chief executive) Justin Harrison across all those discussions and where we sit. I can reassure the players I believe there will be a bright future for them. I’d like to reassure to them there will be every effort made to clarify the position as soon possible.”

The Weekend Australian has learnt several player agents have contacted RA staff asking for guarantees for their players’ contracts beyond this year, with many locked into long-term deals. There has yet to be a formal answer from the governing body.

The request followed a five-minute Zoom meeting on April 22 between coaching director Scott Johnson, national player contracting manager Nick Taylor and a group of player agents.

The Weekend Australian has received a transcript of the meeting where Johnson assured player agents they will answer all questions from the agents via email and put them to the RA board.

“I wanted to reach out to say I am really, really happy to address all questions but can we send the questions through to Nick for him to collate and then we can find adequate responses for all your questions because it is new ground that we are treading in,” Johnson told the meeting. “I will go to our board and we will talk through your questions … so as best we can, we get clarity for you and your players.”

In the same meeting, Johnson said it was a “difficult period” and he was trying to get “clarity” on the season and “what the future looks like”.

With uncertainty around RA’s future, many players are looking at their options or have already signed to overseas clubs in Japan, Europe and the US.

Clarke is renegotiating a deal with Fox Sports for the virus-affected season. He said the talks were “positive” but not finalised. Clarke said there was a promising future for players in Australia.

“I believe there is a bright future here for them here in Australia,” Clarke said.

“The overseas market as a whole is suffering from many of the same issues as we are. Whilst the grass might look greener, some patches in every single union, is going through similar challenges. Work with us. We will work with RUPA closely, we will come up with a clear picture properly. That is my next priority after sorting out 2020’s broadcast deal.

“Foxtel have been brilliant partners for a very long time and I trust that will continue.”

Rugby Australia is due to lodge its accounts for 2019 on May 31.

“I am confident we will get them to ASIC in time for the deadline,” Clarke said. “I am very confident we are solvent and a going concern.”

It’s hard to ignore the reality that the franchise holding all the power in Australian rugby right now is the Western Force. Or, to be more precise, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.

Rugby Australia could have proceeded with just four teams had Forrest not agreed to the Force participating in its domestic Super Rugby AU

In McLennan’s position, it was the smart political move but it was also the correct and very necessary thing. For all their attempts to keep WA at least partially inside the tent, RA had never really admitted the grievous damage they had inflicted on the people of Perth and Western Australia.

Forrest is absolutely correct when he says he supports rugby because of its community-building capacity. But the corollary also holds true. Take a rugby club away — indeed, punish it for no other reason than the fact it was particularly vulnerable at a precise moment in time — and it rips the heart out of a community. So full credit to McLennan. Yes, it was easier for him because he had played no role in the events of 2017, but he recognised that a terrible wrong had been committed and he set out to at least partially rectify it.

Even so, Forrest didn’t make it easy for him or RA, warning that unless there was considerable change, particularly in its governance model, he could see no way that he could continue his investment beyond 2020. So the ball is now entirely in RA’s court.

Except that it’s not …

Everything is now dependent on whether interim RA chief executive Rob Clarke is able to get a signature out of Patrick Delany at Fox Sports in the coming days. If he does, the wolf will have been pushed back from the door, just for a moment. If he doesn’t, then Jessica Halloran’s story that appeared in The Australian on Thursday about the possible defections from the Melbourne Rebels will turn out to be only a quarter true.

If no broadcast deal is done, then all four Super Rugby franchises can expect a player stampede to the international airport — presuming there were any flights for them to catch. It certainly wouldn’t just be the Rebels.

All this sparring only forms the undercard to the main event: the broadcast deal from 2021-25. If Fox Sports or some other mystery buyer doesn’t come to the party with a meaningful offer, rugby will be floundering. When the previous deal was negotiated, there were five Australian teams. Now there are four and, on a per-franchise basis, the $US25m ($37.5m)-a-year Fox offer rejected by Raelene Castle would have been enough, just barely, to keep professional rugby ticking over in this country.

At the time, her rejection of Delany’s offer looked like no more than the usual argy-bargy of negotiating television rights. Now, in hindsight, it looks like Castle passed up a golden opportunity to secure the future of the sport. Not that she would have known that in those pre-coronavirus times.

In her mind, she would have needed an improved number from the broadcaster to make up for the fact that each union would, every second year, have two fewer home games from which to make money, eight down to six. The other year they would have had seven home games, all as a result of
SANZAAR’s decision to do away with the conference system and replace it with a 14-team round robin competition.

So now it is not only whether Fox will make an offer at all but, if it does, how much money will be required to keep the existing four franchises afloat.

That’s difficult to say given that RA must surely be looking at cutting at least $5m from its own headquarters’ expenses through rationalisation and mere commonsense spending, and arguably the same again collectively from the four franchises. Consider, too, the savings to be made by trimming Super Rugby squads from, say, 35 players to 30. And there will be job losses, sadly but inevitably.

Beyond that we are forced to consider culling or merging franchises, and I can imagine a number of Super Rugby bosses tuning out at this point because that is the last thing they want to hear.

Would one of the surviving franchises turn out to be the Force? Having made it back into Super Rugby — of sorts — this year, they wouldn’t take kindly to being elbowed aside in 2021. So, if there is only enough money for four, why wouldn’t a self-sufficient Force be one of them, which would leave the Rebels and Brumbies eyeing each other dubiously?

And what if there is an appetite for only three Aussie sides in a remodelled trans-Tasman competition alongside five Kiwi teams, two Japanese and one islander side? It would be unthinkable to cut the most successful Australian side, the Brumbies, but does it all come down to the states that are producing players and/or can look after themselves financially? The Waratahs, Reds and Force?

And if it transpires that there is no broadcast deal or that the money offered is pitiful, which bewilders me given that this broadcast cycle includes a tour by the British and Irish Lions in 2025, might everything then be turned on its head? Could Global Rapid Rugby become the lifeboat for professional rugby in this country? Would Forrest be able to negotiate a broadcast deal? Would he even need to? Whatever happens, Forrest will be in the middle of it all.

I admit this is all totally fanciful stuff. But when you realise that quality Australian players are taking up offers to move to the US for about $80,000 plus free accommodation for a five-month Major League Rugby contract, you get a stark sense of how unsettled the game here has become.

Small wonder Clarke told the Super Rugby franchise bosses on Thursday that he understood the need for urgency. Until there is success on the broadcast front, they are sitting ducks for overseas clubs and player agents with cashflow problems.